%Introduction


\chapter{Introduction}


\section{Software Pre-requisites}
To use the NET-VISA software on your workstation, please follow the
following steps.

\begin{enumerate}
\item Install Python and the following packages:
\begin{enumerate}
\item cx\_Oracle
\item numpy
\item scipy
\item matplotlib
\item Basemap
\end{enumerate}
\item Set the following environment variables:
{\footnotesize
\begin{verbatim}
export PATH=$PATH:/opt/oracle/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/client_1/bin
export TNS_ADMIN=/opt/oracle/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/client_1/network/admin
export VISA_ORA_USER=xxxx/xxxx@xxxx
\end{verbatim}
}
\end{enumerate}

\section{Training, Validation and Test}

To see the time ranges that will be used for training, validation, and
testing, check the time ranges in the table {\em dataset}. For example:
\begin{verbatim}
$> sqlplus xxxx/xxxx@xxxx
SQL> col begin format a20;
SQL> col end format a20;
SQL> select label, unixts_to_char(start_time) begin,
unixts_to_char(end_time) end from dataset;

LABEL                BEGIN                END
-------------------- -------------------- --------------------
training             01-APR-08 00:00:00   01-APR-09 00:00:00
validation           01-APR-09 00:00:00   01-MAY-09 00:00:00
test                 01-MAY-09 00:00:00   01-JUL-09 00:00:00

\end{verbatim}


